New witness in terror trial tells jury, 'I was scared'

Besnik Bakalli, an illegal immigrant, was awaiting deportation to Albania two years ago when the FBI made him an offer: Become an informant and stay in the United States.

Weeks later, Bakalli found himself in the back of a minivan with three Muslim immigrants living in Cherry Hill. Agents had not told their new cooperator they suspected the men were plotting to strike Fort Dix or another base.

Then one passenger in the van opened his laptop computer and showed Bakalli videos of al Qaeda beheadings and deadly attacks against American troops.

"I was scared," Bakalli testified yesterday in U.S. District Court in Camden. "I never saw these videos before and I'm thinking: What am I doing here? Who are these people?"

Bakalli was the second informant enlisted by agents to secretly infiltrate what they say was a homegrown terror cell in southern New Jersey. His testimony, which began yesterday at five defendants' conspiracy trial, could be more critical than that of the first cooperator on the stand.

The defense has argued there was no plot, except one concocted and encouraged by the FBI informants. Most of the evidence that the first informant, an Egyptian named Mahmoud Omar, gathered about targets and attack plans came from just one defendant, Mohamad Shnewer. His four co-defendants have suggested Shnewer was a gullible patsy who was full of wild talk and didn't represent them.

Prosecutors hope Bakalli can close the loop for jurors.

His task was to befriend Cherry Hill residents Shain, Eljvir and Dritan Duka, three ethnic Albanian brothers living illegally in the United States. Jurors yesterday heard the first clips from dozens of secret recordings in which the Dukas talked cautiously but passionately to Bakalli about what he said became their recurring themes: "Islam, jihad, war, guns."

The snippets highlighted by Deputy U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick suggested the men believed Muslims had been wrongly persecuted, that Americans and Jews were their enemies, and that a holy war was looming.

At times, their conversations sounded more like overheated political rhetoric, or a discourse on the Quran, than terrorist planning.

Other discussions were pointed and graphic.

In one September 2006 talk, Dritan Duka called Osama bin Laden "a good man" and argued the World Trade Center and Pentagon were "military targets" so the people who died there on 9/11 weren't innocent civilians.

"A major war is happening," he said later. "It's just the beginning."

A month or so later, Eljvir Duka described to Bakalli the video that showed the May 2004 beheading of Nicholas Berg, a 26-year-old American contractor in Iraq. Eljvir Duka said he once struggled to watch it but had seen it often enough that "now we can watch it no problem."

In February 2007, Bakalli accompanied the Dukas for a weeklong excursion to the Pocono Mountains. He said he initially believed the trip was a vacation but changed his mind when he saw the ammunition and weapons the brothers brought along.

"It was training," he testified.

Nowhere in the first batch of conversations aired in court yesterday did the defendants discuss any specific timetable, target or method of attack, which defense attorneys are likely to highlight when cross-examination begins later this week.

The defendants' lawyers also are expected to delve deeper into the informant's past for clues about his credibility. Bakalli, 31, twice sneaked into the United States and was convicted in absentia for a shooting in his homeland. He has since been pardoned for that crime, prosecutors say.

Bakalli said the Duka brothers often urged him to be cautious. He said the Dukas believed the FBI had installed hidden cameras and recording devices in their mosque.

"The majority of people can't be trusted today," Eljvir Duka once told Bakalli, according to transcripts played in court.

Still, infiltrating the group didn't prove too difficult.

Bakalli said agents showed photos of each suspect and sent him to a Dunkin' Donuts in Cinnaminson where they gathered each Friday.

As the men passed him in the store, Bakalli said, he began talking in Albanian on his cell phone.

That got their attention.

"They stopped in front of me, they waited until I finished my conversation, they invited me for coffee," he said.

They asked him about his background, he said, and whether he was a Muslim. He wasn't but lied. Within weeks, Bakalli said, he began meeting them at the mosque.

And wearing a wire.

John P. Martin may be reached at (609) 989-0379 or at jmartin@starledger.com.